Need for an interfaith dialogue

By Hussain Mohi-ud-Din Qadri

Owing to information explosion, the world has become a global village where
happenings in one part of the world can have a considerable bearing on the rest
of the world. The tools used for dissemination of information – such as the web
and cell phones lead to a change in attitudes among followers of different
religions and cultures, as well as performing educative and informative roles.

Therefore, the need for efforts to foster positive understanding and interactions
among all religions and civilizations has increased manifold in view of peculiar
nature of threats posed to global order and peace.

Different efforts were made in the past to create reconciliation among religions
but they could not bear positive outcomes. Mughal emperor Akbar, in 16th century
India, tried to bring Muslims and Hindus together by contriving his own ‘Din-e-
Elahi’ (Divine Religion), which he thought could be rendered into a state religion
to establish a fundamental commonality among diverse peoples and a common
identity. This was an unnatural way of integration, and ultimately a failure.
Likewise, the philosophy of amalgamating ‘Ram’ (Hindu god) and ‘Raheem’
(Muslim God) espoused by the leaders of the Bakhti Movement could not
succeed.

The basic reason behind the failure of these efforts was their unrealistic
approach, which served to eliminate faith-based identity by imposing a uniform
religion, foreign to all.

Islam offers a realistic philosophy of dialogue among different religions and

faiths. It accepts the ideological diversity. Islamic history is replete with the
examples of inter-faith harmony. Islam has been a strong proponent of dialogue
and engagement among different religions and civilizations. The first Islamic
state established by the founder of Islam, where followers of three religions lived
together, was a perfect example of harmony and peaceful coexistence based on
mutual respect. The British encyclopedia Britannica writes about this realistic
approach of Islam, “Islam achieved stunning successes in the first phase
because the followers of other religions lived their life with complete religious
independence during the period of Islamic government.”
After all, it is important to understand contradictions and lack of uniformity among
peoples in order to build a harmonious society for the establishment of a durable
peace in the world. The respect for other religions and creed can only be created
after one has thoroughly understood the differences and diversity. The
acknowledgement of diversity and multiplicity tends to broaden our vision and
create space for the establishment of an inclusive society where the citizens
enjoy equality before law and have equal access to opportunities irrespective of
their religion, colour and race. This forms the basis on which different sects and
religions can be brought together for the pursuit of shared goals of human
welfare.

The important principle Islam has worked out in this regard suggests the need for
creation of harmony among people, not religions because differences between
religions are natural and cannot be wished away. All divine religions also have
shared values and commonalities, which can lay the foundation of a peaceful
world. Peace and welfare of humanity constitute the essential message of every
religion. The Madina Pact issued by the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) is the
written constitution that acknowledged the non-Muslims such as Jews and
Christians living in the state of Madian as equal citizens and conferred all rights
on them including the freedom to practice their religion.

The world needs to grasp and implement this principle as a way out of our
present-day predicaments. The followers of every religion have their unique set
of creed and beliefs and no one has the right to denounce them under any
pretext. The commonalities among religions can be emphasized by
understanding their differences. There are so many shared areas such as
education, social and welfare services, climate change, social security, science
and technology, multiculturalism and peace, which call for concerted efforts
through global partnerships and alliances.

The followers of different religions and faiths need to join their forces and open
the doors of dialogue and interactions to live peacefully and eliminate terrorism
and extremism. The UN has a key role to play in instituting a permanent
mechanism to make this happen. It can design an institutional response through
broad-based participation of the international community. We need to understand
that the threat to global peace comes from non-state actors who want to impose
their highly bigoted and radicalized version of religions on others. They use the
fair name of religions to justify their otherwise unjustifiable actions. We can only
defeat these people if we launch interfaith dialogue as a structured movement at
the global level with a view to building bridges among different civilizations. This
process of interfaith presents us with the only road ahead on the path of abiding
peace, harmony and development.